JAKARTA - China's ZTE Corporation, a leading global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, on Wednesday announced that it is ranked third in the global optical networking (ON) industry according to the latest research by industry analyst firm Ovum, a press statement said here.

ZTE posted the strongest gains for the first quarter of 2010 and a strong increase in overall revenues to rise from its previous position as the seventh-ranked vendor in 1Q09.

According to Ovum's latest report entitled "Market Share: 1Q10 optical networks, global and regional", many of the top ten ON vendors posted double digit percentage revenue declines for 1Q10, as compared to 1Q09. ZTE was the only vendor which showed a 33 percent sequential increase in overall revenues for the first quarter of 2010.

The Ovum report also noted that only Cisco and ZTE reported growth as compared to the same quarter one year go, with ZTE proving to be the top performer of the first quarter this year, fueled by a big contract win with China Mobile for backhaul- related PTN products for its 3G network.

"Many vendors have seen benefits from operators' need to revamp their mobile backhaul networks to cope with broadband traffic, new services and new devices. In this regard, ZTE's competitive position in the China market was a strong plus for it in 1Q10," commented Matt Walker, a principal analyst on Ovum's Network Infrastructure team.

Fan Xiaobing, general manager of ZTE's bearer network product line said that the company made great strides in the optical network markets in 2009, especially in the PTN market where it got a gigantic win in China Mobile's PTN tender.

"The scale of this networking project is huge with stringent networking requirements, and clinching the contract was a great encouragement to both ZTE and its customers," he said.